Posts Tagged With: #ranchinginJanuary

Monday was rainy, but fairly warm for January, we hear it is supposed to be cold by the end of the week. Toni worked on Dandy and Spark and they were little mud balls. Dandy is a dandy guy to work on, he is a typical Sagebug acting already halter brokeish.  PVF mailed Kade a sweatshirt and a hat so he can wear some PVF swag at cattle shows. We thought that was pretty nice of them. Kade likes the heifer he got from them and is excited to show her in 2024. On Monday Toni and Ben decided to get the cows in on Tuesday and sort out the heavies and leave them by the house due to the weather that is planned to come in. We have the real heavies already in, but we want anything that could possibly calve in the next 2 weeks in to the house.

Tuesday was super windy, but on Tuesday afternoon Ben and Toni got all the cows in and sorted them. The cows want hay since they feel the cold coming and want some additional energy, so they were easy to get in. They sorted off 19 to keep in, and we had 3 in already, so 22 head in the heavy pen. We also try to only keep cows that have the right disposition, so even if all of the cows aren’t halter broke, they also aren’t crazy. The sorting went well and all the cows wanted to stay in because of the weather so tried their best to look heavy. We also decided that we needed to promote King with new pictures and video, with Wednesday being the only day that might work due to weather. Weather seems to be the key factor in all decisions this week.

Wednesday morning was freezing fog, Toni was headed to Prosser to get some pics of King, so she left about an hr later to wait for some of the fog to burn off. In the Prosser area they had a skiff of snow, so not sliding controlled stops for King, just sliding snow stops. Toni checked the cows before she left, luckily the heavy cows were in, because the ones in the corn field were hard to see in the fog. Toni said King did awesome, Jordan jumped on with no warm up and they took off. They got lots of great pictures. Kaine told us Wednesday that him and his friends were presenting their welding project to the school board. None of us parents knew what was going on. Kaine was the one old enough to drive so Jade said Max said Kaine is picking him up and they were doing something at the school, Randi said her Maxx said the same thing. Jara said they got their poop in a group when they got there and did a great job. I guess that is the G version of their shit together?

On Thursday D187 calved in the heavy pen, is was not deadly cold yet so was doing ok. When Toni checked everyone was good. I worked on the King pics Wednesday and Thursday nights to get them up. It is the first of the year so Toni has had lots of client meetings.  Even with the frozen ground, Toni continued to work on Dandy and Spark every night. Dandy is just a buddy. Loves to be scratched, loves attention. Spark has more fire, but super smart, great moving colt. Both colts are exactly what we have expected them to be. They are really done being halter broke but we decided to leave them in for the bad weather because they are the youngest in the weaned pen to make sure they are getting enough feed, room on the straw bale, staying warm. 

Thursday night/Friday morning is when the cold started. Nothing calved during the night but 719 had calved when Toni got there and Dark Knight was acting like she was starting. Toni got 719 calf in the house, she used the Colorado, and Leo jumped in, the wind blew the door shut and Leo locked the door. So she went and got the spare pile of keys and went through them until she found the one. Leo got locked in Anna’s room and Dark Knight got locked in the barn. The 719 calf got put in the laundry room to try to thaw to the point she could be given colostrum. Chad came and trimmed MC’s feet. Chad is usually fine to keep going but both Toni and Chad decided it was plenty cold and one horse was enough. Then Toni went back to check again and fed 719’s calf colostrum, which she was excited to get.  I got groceries and stayed with grandma on Friday night.  Toni called me as the day went on with updates. She is not a fan of Leo right now.

The cold continued on Saturday. Tank got out and Kade got him in on his way to trap shooting. We switched him and Cappy so he is now locked in the corral and Cappy is on the hill. Jaxsen worked hard breaking waters at night and mom broke them in the morning when she walked her dog. Dad did the ones at the house. We worked on Spark and Dandy, who are as far as most of the foals, but since they are so late we have left them in to get more feed. We let the horses that are out for the winter in with the yearling heifers, since the running water, so the lake is open, is in the heifer pen and the horses ponds were all frozen. Water is a very limiting factor on where livestock can winter. In this case all of our water was frozen except in one spot so now the livestock is intermixed. We had our November-January birthday party Saturday night, but did not say long we needed to go home and check. It was still good to get out and see the family for a bit. We were missing quite a bit of the family, but with the weather, everyone that could come, did. Leslie already had like 6 calves in the shop to get warm and through the night had even more. Luckily we didn’t have any calves on Saturday night but we got up and checked all night. I am glad my kids are old enough to help.

Sunday was a little warmer with no breeze and a beautiful sun, we had a few calves during the day, the day calves did not have to go to the barn since it was sunny. 9422 (Anna’s show heifer from 2019 “Tilly”) had hers right when the sun went down, so he started to get cold so we moved him in. 919T was calving then so she also went into the barn. We worked on Dandy and Spark, Kaine and Kade put grass straw out. On the way down to mom’s they bounced one bale off the trailer, but it landed over at the edge of the road so we decided to get it on Monday. We helped Jaxsen with water. Water was really frozen everywhere so it took all hands-on deck. At my 10 o’clock check, I switched Kaine since I had to work on Monday and they did not have school, 055 had just calved, so I got her and her calf in the barn, 919T had calved. 051 was calving but she was further along then moving her at that point, so I woke Ben up (or actually Andee the dog woke him up since I was taking too long outside and she was ready to go in) so he got up with Kaine at midnight. They moved 051 and her new calf into the barn and gave 919T and 055 calves colostrum since they did not look like they had nursed. Anna’s bottle calf and gotten in with 055 since she was in his pen and he was laying in his corner. It was long night. 

Happiness is really a funny thing. Probably city people would think we had a bad week and spirits would be low here. In fact that isn’t the case. The weather wasn’t great, but it could have been worse and due to our efforts we kept all of our calves alive. Nothing makes a rancher happier than seeing those calves bucking and kicking across the snow.

Please remember to help us spread the word that King sells at Billings online sale Jan 16-18. The sale ends THURSDAY the 18^th. We really really appreciate all the help from our friends to spread the word. Selling a stud can be pretty difficult. There is a much smaller buying pool, so the more people that know about him and can help spread the word, the better. We are excited for this new opportunity to sell at Billings without having to go to Billings. This may be a great avenue for us to sell in the future. We are excited to see how it goes. King’s link:

https://bid.northernlivestockvideo.com/KT-King-Of-Blue_i51492006